"Soli Deo Gloria" (Deuteronomy 8:1-10) - Thanksgiving Eve

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Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ! Amen! Dear brothers and sisters in Christ:

“And you shall remember the whole way that the Lord your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, that He might humble you, testing you to know what is in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments or not” (Deuteronomy 8:2).

 

Happy Thanksgiving Eve! Tomorrow is the day our republic has set aside to give thanks to our God. So, what are you thankful for?

 

In today’s reading from Deuteronomy, Moses calls on the Israelites to remember Yahweh as the source of every good thing that Israel has and will have in the Promised Land. The nation of Israel’s past, present, and future, are all under the care and promises of Yahweh.

 

But did they always remember that? Most often, they grumbled. They consistently grumbled against Moses and God. So many of them preferred slavery in Egypt than wandering those 40 years in the wilderness. Moses feared that God’s people would forget about God. 

 

So, God inspired Moses to say: “You shall remember the whole way that the Lord your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, that He might humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not. And He humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that He might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord” (Deuteronomy 8:2-3).

 

In other words, God is saying: “Remember how these forty years I have led you and cared for you. I have protected you from the elements, fed you with manna and quail. It wasn’t luxurious living, but I have brought you safely to the Promised Land. Yes, there were times of difficulties. Yes, you murmured and complained. I never forgot about you even through you thought I did. I did all these things so that you might be humbled.”

 

When Israel stopped to think about all of this, they were moved to give praise and thanksgiving to God.

 

And what about you and me? As we step back and recollect, we remember those times when we were sick or discouraged. We remember those times when you thought no one really cared, including God. But as time went on, God helped you, encouraged you, healed you. 

 

It is so easy to go on with our lives and forget to look back at the times God helped us through: those difficult times in our families, those financial struggles. But as we look back, we see how God worked His will in our lives, humbled us, and focused our attention back on Him again.

 

As you stop to remember, you may be surprised at how many reasons we have to be thankful to Him.

 

Look to your Baptism as you were adopted as a child of God, an heir to the promise. Look to the cross and empty tomb where your sins were forgiven through the blood and merit of Jesus Christ. Look to the Lord’s Supper where Christ gives you His very Body and Blood under the bread and the wine, which forgives your sins and strengthens your faith to life everlasting. We have so much to be thankful for.

 

Like the Israelites who grumbled until they realized all that God provided in their lives, another man had reasons to grumble. By the age of ten, both of his parents had died. He experienced struggle after struggle with various trials. His wife would die leaving him as a single father with a house full of children. However, he would re-marry and be blessed with many more children. 

 

Between all of that, this man was employed by the church. And he appeared to often lack patience. He served congregations playing the organ, but oftentimes the congregation would want him to direct the choir. And when things took a turn, again, he often lacked patience. At one such church, the choir demanded simpler music. He claimed that his aim was to create music to the glory of God. So, he left and took a new job at another church. This man would eventually write a new cantata each month. At his death, he composed more than one thousand albums to the glory of God.

 

Upon each of his compositions, this man wrote “J.J.” at the beginning and “S.D.G.” at the end. They are abbreviations for the Latin, “Jesus Juva,” which means “Jesus, help me!” and “Soli Deo Gloria,” which means “to the glory of God alone.” He hoped that when the music was played, it would point toward God.

 

He once said, “I play the notes as they are written, but it is God who makes the music.” His desire was to always glorify God.

 

If you haven’t caught on already, this man was the Lutheran composer Johann Sebastian Bach.

 

For anyone who has read through my sermons on wspop.org, you may have noticed what I have typed at the conclusion of my sermons. I have followed Bach’s tradition with “Soli Deo Gloria” — “to the glory of God alone.” I write those words as a reminder that I am a poor, miserable sinner who is nothing without God. I would have nothing to say without God. So, every sermon I preach is to His glory as I preach His Law and Gospel. It’s not about me. It’s always all about Jesus.

 

And like the Israelites and Bach, we will also face tests. As God humbled them, He is also humbling us. 

 

So, remember where you are now. Israel could not have made it to the Promised Land without God. They made it because God cared for them throughout those forty years. He fed them, He clothed them. As Israel stood before the Promised Land, they were grateful for being where they were. They remembered to give God all the glory.

 

In Deuteronomy 8, God is tapping us on the shoulder and asking us if we have stopped to think about where we are today. What a privilege it is to hear the message of God’s love in Christ, to kneel at the communion rail and have fellowship with God. What a joy it is to hear those words of forgiveness pronounced over us! 

 

Have you looked around and remembered all those people God has placed in your life here at Prince of Peace Lutheran Church and elsewhere who have had an influence on your life? As we ponder and remember, your hearts swell with thanksgiving.

 

And look at your personal life: your family, your home, your relatives and friends. Look at all that surrounds you. Look at all the blessings God bestows upon you as His daily bread: “everything that has to do with the support and needs of the body, such as food, drink, clothing, shoes, house, home, land, animals, money, goods, a devout husband or wife, devout children, devout workers, devout and faithful rulers, good government, good weather, peace, health, self-control, good reputation, good friends, faithful neighbors, and the like” (Luther’s Small Catechism: Fourth Petition).

 

We would have nothing without God. That is what God has done and is still doing for us today.

 

But there is more to come! “For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and springs, flowing out in the valleys and hills, a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive trees and honey, and land in which you will eat bread without scarcity, in which you will lack nothing, a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills you can dig copper. And you shall eat and be full, and you shall bless the Lord your God for the good land He has given you” (Deuteronomy 8:7-10).

 

The Israelites were about to enter the Promised Land. We will soon enter paradise.

 

As Christians, we know where we are going. Our future is certain. Jesus made sure of that for us by His suffering, death, and resurrection.

 

Deuteronomy 8 reminds us that God has provided for us in the past, He continues to provide for us now, and because He is God, He will surely fulfill His promises for our future. He will fill your future with His love and His care. Our lives are sealed with the love of God that surpasses all human understanding.

 

Remembering that God is always with us, our heartaches turn to hope. Our difficulties turn into praise. Soli Deo Gloria: to the glory of God alone! Amen!

 

The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, 
keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, our Lord. Amen.
+ SOLI DEO GLORIA +

Sermon for Lent Midweek 5: "Prayer: Our Greatest Weapon - Part 2"

Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ! Amen! Dear brothers and sisters in Christ:

Last week, we heard the first three petitions in the Lord’s Prayer. 

§  First, God’s Name is holy in itself, but we pray that it may be hallowed in us and in the whole world and that the Word and the honor of God may be kept holy against blasphemers of His Name. This is done when His Name and His honor is in our teaching and life.

§  Second, His kingdom comes when His Word increases and is powerful among us. We have His kingdom through His Word and Sacraments now and when His kingdom comes when we die, or Christ returns first.

§  Third, that all those be restrained who oppose His Name and the kingdom of God, for the will of God is that “everyone who looks on the Son and believes in Him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day” (John 6:40).

 

Each of these petitions, or requests, also serve us as our weapons against Satan’s spiritual warfare. Tonight, we will conclude our look at the Lord’s Prayer with the fourth through the seventh petitions.

 

“Give us this day our daily bread.” Now, what is meant by daily bread? Well, consider a breadbasket, which contains the necessities of our body and of the temporal life. So, “daily bread” is everything that we need to survive. It’s literal bread from the baker’s oven. It’s drink, clothing, shoes, house, home, land, animals, money, goods, a devout husband or wife, devout children, devout workers, devout and faithful rulers, good government, good weather, temporal peace, health, self-control, good reputation, good friends, faithful neighbors. “Daily bread” is not an accidental thing. “Daily bread” is the gift of God. 

 

Now, this “daily bread” God gives to even the wicked and the godless. But nevertheless, we know and acknowledge that every “daily bread” comes from God.

 

So, in this petition, we pray against everything that hinders daily bread. This petition is against tempest, war, and those who loot and steal that which belongs to their neighbor. But nonetheless, the Lord wants us to pray in order that we acknowledge daily bread as His gift.

Now, on to the next request: “And forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.”

 

No one does as he or she should do. But at the same time, we get stuck in the mire of being proud and think that we are thoroughly holy.

 

So, all of us must say, “Forgive us our trespasses.” We must pray to God to give us a conscience unafraid, which is assured that your sins are forgiven. This petition serves those who are conscious of their sins. For one who falsely thinks that they are righteous by their own doing are only liars. “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us” (1 John 1:8).

 

In this petition, may everyone acknowledge the need for which you feel. We must all admit and confess that we do not do enough for our neighbor. Therefore, we must daily pray for forgiveness of sins.

 

God promises the forgiveness of sins, but we must also forgive our neighbor. To this, Luther writes, “If you have someone whom you do not forgive, you pray in vain. Therefore let each one look to his neighbor, if he has been offended by him, and forgive him from the heart; then he will be certain that his sin too has been forgiven … if you forgive, you too will be forgiven.”

 

The life of the Christian is a life of repentance and forgiveness, and thus we pray to God our Father, “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.”

 

Now we can pray, “And lead us not into temptation,” which means “not into evil enticement.” What exactly is temptation? Temptation is sin that cling to us. There are three temptations: the flesh, the fallen world, and the devil.

 

First, let’s look at the temptation that is of the flesh. Our flesh says, “Pornography isn’t hurting anyone. Go ahead and click that link.” Or, “If you’re not feeling loved by your spouse, go ahead and find love elsewhere.” Or, if you are a salesman, “I know the product is only worth this much, but I’m going to charge double, because what the customers don’t know won’t hurt them.” 

 

The flesh seeks to satisfy its lust in glutting, guzzling, and loafing.

 

Second is the temptation of the fallen world, which tempts us with envy, hatred, and pride. Say your neighbor irritates you to anger when you are making a bargain and all of a sudden you become impatient, the fallen world comes upon you and up you go – you blow your top. 

 

Or you could want to conform to this fallen world. These are the worldly temptations. You live your life for the Facebook likes. You live your life following the winds and ways of this fallen world to eventually find yourself believing that a man can be a woman and a woman can be a man and a child can become a cat. Yet, five minutes ago, you thought that to be crazy, but now you are one with the world, so you are fine with wrong being right. To this we ought to pray: “O Lord, bring it to pass that the flesh and the world shall not seduce me!”

 

Third is the temptation by the devil. He tempts us by causing us to disregard God’s Word. “Sunday is fun day. It’s been a tiring week; I have to sleep in on Sunday, because I was out late on Saturday, so I just can’t get to church Sunday morning – or even Monday evening.” Or, even if you do come to church to hear the sermon, you don’t take it in, you have no delight, no love, no reverence for the Word of God.

 

St. Peter reminds us, our “adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour” (1 Peter 5:8). But rarely does he make a frontal attack that we can prepare for as we defend ourselves. Instead, temptation most commonly sneaks up and attacks from behind. Temptation ambushes us in ways that we never see coming.

 

Consider this: You are new to the area. You find a new doctor, new dentist, new friends, and a new church. You attend church a few weeks, then you miss a few weeks. You attend one week, then miss five weeks. Before you know it, you are no longer attending the Divine Service at all. God has become distant and drifted off the radar screen. In other words, a Christian doesn’t just wake up one morning and decide to renounce the faith. Instead, you drift away without ever realizing it. Temptation most commonly sneaks up and attacks from behind. In this petition, we pray to be preserved from this.

 

Satan attacks us with unbelief and indifference. But we have the promise that God will deliver us from these temptations of the flesh, the fallen world, and the devil. Our whole life is nothing but temptation by these three. Therefore, we must pray: “Dear Father, let not our flesh seduce us, let not the world deceive us, and let not the devil cast us down.” 

And so we conclude the Lord’s Prayer saying: “But deliver us from evil.” What is this evil that we pray against? We are praying against the evil one, the devil, Satan himself. So, we can sum it up this way: “Deliver us from the wicked devil, who hinders our prayers. O Lord, deliver us!”

 

Satan is evil himself, but the “evil” in this petition is everything on earth that is evil, such as sickness, poverty, death – whatever evil there is in this fallen dominion of Satan, of which there is very much here on earth.

 

In short, O Lord, deliver us from the devil.

 

Then as we conclude the Lord’s Prayer, God’s name will be hallowed, His kingdom come, and His will be done, and we are delivered from all things.

 

We pray these words of the Lord’s Prayer so that God tramples the devil under foot. We pray these words for there is a great need for daily bread. 

 

In these seven petitions are found all our anxieties, all our needs, and all our perils, which we ought to bring to God. These are great petitions, but God, who wills to do great things is greater. Therefore, let us learn to pray well since God wants us to do this. Through prayer, we experience the power of God, through which He is able to give us great things, to make us good, to keep the Word, to give us a holy life, to give us a weapon against Satan. In our prayers, we enlist the aid, the support, and the power of our heavenly Father. Amen.

 

The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, our Lord. Amen. 

+ SOLI DEO GLORIA +

Sermon for Lent Midweek 4: "Prayer: Our Greatest Weapon - Part 1"

Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ! Amen! Dear brothers and sisters in Christ:

Last Wednesday we finished our series on the Creed. Throughout those weeks, we learned that God does not withhold anything from us. He has given us Himself and His entire creation. And not only that, He gave us the Gospel: His only-begotten Son. And He gave us the Holy Spirit so we would know the Son of God and sanctify us through Word and Sacrament to keep us in the one true Christian faith.

 

Because the Father gave His gifts by creation, the Son by redemption, the Holy Spirit by sanctification, we are now able to run to the Triune God and ask Him for blessings with all boldness and confidence as dear children ask their dear father as He invites us to pray to Him.

 

But what does it mean to pray? Quite simply, to pray is to ask. This is the heart and core of prayer. Now this may sound like we are asking God, “gimme, gimme, gimme.” It may sound like we are self-centered and selfish. But when it comes to our relationship with God, prayer actually reveals something of our standing before God. We never don’t need everything from God. We are never independent from Him.

 

In our series on the Creed, we learned that everything we are and have comes from God Himself. You and I didn’t choose to be born. We did not earn or merit it. God did not owe it to us. Instead, everything we have is a gift. We, you and me, exist solely as gifts of God. And so, our life and our lives are completely dependent upon God. We live from the gifts of God. That’s what it means to be creatures and not the Creator. So, you and I will never not need food and drink, family and friends, good weather, health for our bodies. And so, God tenderly invites us to ask, and to receive all these gifts, and many more, with thanksgiving.

 

At the same time, we are also fallen creatures. We are sinful creatures. You and I stand before God always needing to be cleansed from sin, and constantly restored to God’s favor and grace. Yet, even as sinners, God approaches us and tenderly invites us to call Him “Father.” He extends His hand so that we may take it. We can call God “Our Father,” because of Jesus, who is our Brother. So, as long as we live in this fallen world, there’s not a moment when we do not need to ask for God’s forgiveness and His favor. And we are bold to ask, because of Jesus Christ.

So, what does Jesus give us in the prayer that He has taught us? He has given us seven petitions. Seven requests. Seven weapons against all the spiritual warfare that Satan can throw at us. Tonight, we will look at the first three petitions of the Lord’s Prayer.

 

First, “Hallowed be Thy Name.” God’s Name has been given to us. God gave us His Name when you were baptized in His Name, which makes you His child. So, through the Sacrament of Holy Baptism, God unites us to Him.

 

Now that we have been made His child, what does it mean to hallow the name of God? Well, this goes back to the Second Commandment, which we went over last Lenten season. The purpose of the Second Commandment is so that we do not curse, swear, use satanic arts, or deceive by His Name. So, God’s Name is hallowed when we call upon Him, pray, praise, give thanks, tell others about Him in how He is merciful and helps us in peril and otherwise.

 

So, the First Petition in the Lord’s Prayer is explained by the Second Commandment. In short, when one teaches and lives as a Christian, then that person – you and me – will not curse, swear, use satanic arts, or deceive by His Name.

 

So, in this petition, as Luther says, we can pray against all who preach, teach, and believe falsely, who persecute the Word of God by violence, and against those who lie, deceive, revile, and curse against us, so that His Name may become holy, that the whole world may not curse and swear by His Name, but rather pray and call upon Him, according to the Second Commandment.

 

Now to the second petition, the second request, the second weapon: “Thy kingdom come.”

 

The second need which drives us to prayer is that we pray that God’s kingdom may come. Jesus is teaching us to pray so that we may be a part of the kingdom. But what is meant by “kingdom”? What exactly is the Father’s kingdom, God’s kingdom, the kingdom of heaven?

 

God’s kingdom comes in two ways: first, here, through His Means of Grace – His Word and Sacraments, and secondly, that in the future, eternal life is given to us.

 

The kingdom of heaven has been granted to us through the King of kings, our Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus is the King of righteousness and life against the devil, sin, eternal death, and all evil. He has given us His Holy Word, that it may be preached, in order that we might believe in Him and live holy lives. 

 

Therefore, we pray in this petition that the Holy Spirit may go out into the world with power, that many may come into His kingdom now – through the Church – and learn to believe and thus be partakers of redemption from sin, eternal death, and hell in the life to come.

 

The third request and weapon in the Lord’s Prayer is “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”

 

Prayer is not an easy task. Prayer isn’t easy, because through prayer, we actually place ourselves on the front line in the battle between God and Satan. You see, the moment the Holy Spirit enters our hearts and kindles faith in God, at that moment we then turn to God crying, “Our Father, who art in heaven…” At that moment, we also turn our backs on Satan. And Satan considers that a declaration of war. Nothing infuriates him more than to have someone liberated from his prison and returned home as a child and heir of God.

 

So, when you pray, “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven,” you have declared war on Satan. For Satan wants to prevent the will of God from being done. The devil cannot endure that the Word should be preached and the people accept it, so he sends his poisoned arrows: the fallen world and our sinful flesh, so that those would hinder God’s will.

 

And what is God’s will? That “everyone who looks on the Son and believes in Him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day” (John 6:40).

 

Because of Satan’s hatred for God and His salvation, he holds nothing back. He undermines the Name and Word of God. He even seeks to keep us from receiving our daily bread, the necessities of life, in peace and thanksgiving.

 

In these first three petitions, we pray that God’s Name be hallowed through His Word and also in us, that we adhere to His Word in His kingdom now and in heaven, and that God would hinder those who oppose His will. As Luther says, until next week “let this be sufficient for this time on these first three petitions.” 

 

We do not stand alone in this battle; we do have Someone who goes into the battle ahead of us and fights for us: Jesus Christ. May Christ’s victory over Satan be also our victory. In the meantime, continue to pray to God for all your needs, for prayer is the greatest weapon against Satan. Amen.

 

The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, our Lord. Amen. 

+ SOLI DEO GLORIA +

Let’s Get Back to the Basics

This month, I debated on what my article would be. I had two themes I wanted to write about. Originally, what you are about to read was going to be my “Pastor’s Corner” submission for the August 12^th McLeod County Chronicle. So, my second theme will be in the August 12^th newspaper. So, onto the August newsletter:

Why do bad things happen to good people? How would you answer this question? Take a moment to think before reading on.

Why is there so much crime? Why are there so many shootings? Why is there hate? Why is there racism? Why this? Why that?

While these answers may seem unanswerable, there is an answer. The answer is: sin. Now, what is sin? As the culture around us has eliminated sin from our collective conscience, some may wonder “what exactly is sin?”

Today, many sins have become accepted — or even praised — by society. But, according to the one true God, humanity cannot just eliminate sins. If humanity had this power, we would step into God’s office. So, again, what is a sin? Well, the one true God tells us in His Ten Commandments. Ever since the fall of Adam in the Garden, humanity has been destined to death, hell, and damnation. Every human being is under the curse that Adam set forth, since every human being is descended from Adam, so “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23).

But, didn’t God reveal the Ten Commandments to Moses? Didn’t Moses live well after Adam? Yes, but before the Law was revealed, the Law was written on our hearts — beginning with Adam. So, Adam, like you and me, was bound by God’s Law.

God reveals to us that “the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23a). So, are we just doomed? No! Why is this? “The free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:23b).

But, what can Jesus do? Isn’t He like us — a descendant of Adam? Well, Adam was created by God. While, Jesus is God Himself. Jesus is the Creator. You see, Jesus is like us in every way, except Jesus never sinned. How is that possible? The answer lies in the good news, or the Gospel, that was revealed to us in the New Testament and is also revealed to us in the Creeds.

You see, the Creeds (Nicene, Apostles’, Athanasian) reveal this good news short and sweet. Although, Jesus is man, He is also fully God. He is fully God in that His mother Mary did not become pregnant via a descendant of Adam, but she became pregnant by God Himself. The Nicene Creed puts it this way: “And [I believe] in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of His Father before all worlds, God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made; who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the virgin Mary and was made man.”

This free gift of eternal life is found only by grace through faith in Jesus Christ alone. By faith, we receive this grace through Christ’s perfect life, His sacrificial death for our sins upon the cross, and His bodily resurrection from the dead for our justification. This same Jesus is reigning in heaven at the right hand of God the Father.

Until, Christ comes again to judge the living and the dead, we pray as He has taught us to pray in the Lord’s Prayer. We pray to God the Father and ask Him confidently about all our needs of body and soul. We are able to ask these petitions through the person and work of Jesus Christ, who is the only mediator between God and man.

So, why do bad things happen to good people? Well, according to God, there are no good people on their own merit. We are all just lost and condemned sinners. But, through believing, trusting and following Jesus, we become good. In Christ alone, we are made good. In Christ alone, we receive forgiveness of sins, salvation, and life everlasting!

In Christ,

Pastor Adelsen